As an Internet advertisement method, a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) link scheme is mainly being used. An Internet advertisement based on the URL link scheme is an advertisement method that inserts Internet advertisements (hereinafter referred to as banner advertisements, which have types such as text character strings, banners and moving images), where a URL link is set, in a web page having many users' accesses, and achieves advertisement effects by moving to an advertisement web page associated with a corresponding advertisement on the basis of the link information when a user accesses a corresponding web page and clicks the Internet advertisement.
Accordingly, the Internet advertisement based on the URL link scheme cannot achieve advertisement effects by only exposing the banner advertisement in a specific web page, and can obtain desired advertisement effects only when a user clicks the banner advertisement. That is, as the number of click times for a banner advertisement exposed in a specific web page becomes higher, i.e., as a CTR becomes higher, the Internet advertisement based on the URL link scheme can obtain a high advertisement effect.
FIG. 1 is an exemplary diagram illustrating the web page of a portal site in which an Internet advertisement is inserted.
Referring to FIG. 1, a web page provided from a portal site provides contents such as news articles, and allocates a specific region as an advertisement region 100 to provide all types of advertisements (for example, text character strings, banners and moving images).
In such advertisements, different advertisements may be provided with time or according to the web-page accesses of users. For example, if an advertisement A is displayed when a user first accesses a web page, an advertisement B may be displayed when the user refreshes or reaccesses the same web page. If an advertisement A is displayed when a user X accesses a web page, an advertisement B may be displayed when a user Y accesses the same web page.
As shown in FIG. 1, moreover, when a plurality of advertisements are provided in the advertisement region 100, the advertisements provided in the advertisement region 100 and their order may be changed and displayed each time each user is accessed. That is, whenever each user accesses a web page, advertisements are randomly extracted from a database storing a plurality of advertisements by the number of corresponding advertisements that may be simultaneously inserted and are displayed.
As a method of extracting advertisements that are inserted in the advertisement region 100 of a web page from a database storing a plurality of advertisements, a related art method of determining the frequency of exposure to Internet advertisements will be described below.
When a b number of advertisements may be simultaneously inserted in the advertisement region 100, the advertisement region 100 is configured with a b number of advertisement slots. All advertisements, which are registered as being inserted in the advertisement region 100, are stored in the database. When the total number of advertisements registered in the database is ‘a’ and the advertisement region 100 has a b number of slots, the frequency of exposure to one individual advertisement is “b/a”.
The CTRs of individual advertisements are shown to vary in a corresponding advertisement region according to factors such as the construction of advertisement sentences (for example, head copies) or the preference of businesses. Accordingly, although CTRs for individual advertisements vary, when all advertisements are randomly inserted at the same rate like a related art method, general advertisement effect decreases. That is, by exposing an advertisement having a high CTR and an advertisement having a low CTR at the same rate, it is impossible to maximize a general CTR.
As described above, two limitations that are caused when a general CTR decreases are as follows. First, all advertisers can achieve the purposes of advertisements by displaying advertisement web pages that are linked through users' clicks, and in this case, the decrease of a CTR denotes the general decrease of an advertisement effect. Second, when fee per click is applied according to a contract between an advertiser and a homepage provider or advertisement agent that provides a corresponding Internet advertisement, the homepage provider or the advertisement agent can merely obtain an advertisement profit equal to or lower than an average profit in a case where it provides an Internet advertisement having low advertisement attractiveness. That is, in all advertisers and a homepage provider or an advertisement agent that provides a corresponding Internet advertisement, the general decrease of a CTR causes the decrease of an advertisement effect and the decrease of an advertisement profit.